Soundings

Dark in itself is not energy; it is a lack of light, which is is a visible wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that also has properties exhibited by particles.  Light has substance, dark is simply the absence of it.  Think the same way about cold, as the absence of heat energy.  Looking out this nighttime window, there is a thick fog rolling in, illuminated by the mostly orange city sodium lights, thus filling the dark with the dull flame of a smothering phantasm.

When very small and visiting my grandparents on their street which was a cathedral with arching elm trees, we had to leave our house out in the country by 5:30 a.m., to be dropped off by my father and then picked up again at the end of his work day.  My mother and I would let ourselves in and sit quietly waiting for them to wake not long after we arrived, just as dawn was rising.   But often there was fog, a roiling dragon of wet cloud scuttering up one street and down the next, over the sidewalks of slate and through the leaves of the trees.  At the time, Buffalo was still an important harbor on the Great Lakes, and many ships would try to find their way past the shoals with nothing but skill and the assist of a diaphone, a two-toned foghorn.

I remember my Mom saying, "Shhh.  Listen," and a far-off, low pitch would sing out in the amorphous air, while the smell of the Lake told of freighters and tugs, of blue pike and giant sturgeon.  Ghostly, forbidding, hollow, it would send a thrill up my spine as if hearing an abyssal voice from a riparian sepulcher; a verdict that was also a life saving guide, a guardian.  The sound would bounce off the fog ensuring that the lonely, shoulder-heaving sigh was heard for great distances.

The valves used the same principle as a Wurlitzer organ, and in fact were constructed by Robert Hope-Jones, the originator of the theatre organ.  It pointed away from shore, and performed at 128 decibels, the same as a jet engine; signs warned to stay back at least fifty feet.  Still standing, it was silenced about 1962 when technology caught up with the shipping industry; the pipes are rusted but observable at the South Buffalo Lighthouse.

Mom told me that the foghorn was helping the boats in the harbor reach the docks safely, for there were many breakwaters and places to run aground.  Coal was being brought in for the steel mills and foundries, grain was shoveled into silos to make flour.  My Uncle Ray worked on a tug that nosed the huge ships up the Buffalo River, slow and steady, to the grain elevators that unloaded tons.
He would often come home chilled, in spite of a heavy peacoat.

What sounds pierce the air now?  There was a bottle light on the breakwater that would emit a screech every few minutes until recently; now in the morning the only announcing sound I hear is the train, as it huffs and sounds entry into the Exchange Street tunnel; listening, I can hear it make the next tunnel in Depew, ten miles away.  The lift bridge at the foot of Ferry Street blasts out a warning before the immense, cantilevered tank fills with water that causes the bridge to tilt upwards, allowing masted boats and tall cruisers access through the channel.  Still, railroad crossings clang warning bells when the gates go down on either side of the track, churches and college belfries ring out carillons or the equivalent thereof, and some factories yet have whistles to mark shifts.  

I have a gong.  Not overlarge, but not the smallest, either.  It leaves a pleasant, low sound vibrating through the room when struck that seems to clean the air and chase away negativity.   A different message than a warning or timekeeper, it is there purely because of it's musicality, but it does perform as a signal to start the day or to allow the subconscious night to begin.  Like a thank you, with the sound waves stretching to who knows where.

Good night, good night, traveller.  It is three days since the blizzard and the warm temperatures have brought rain, melting the snow.  Two days ago I heard the trees alive with sparrows and cardinals calling in clear, strident tones; I am here, I am here.   Oh, it was a good feeling that they made it through the unbearable winds and below zero weather.   After you tighten the latches and switch out the lights, before you sail to dreams, lay and listen, listen for signals.  Shhhh.